Chilled Brood

Got to Mom's house early this morning and peaked out at the hive. There were a lot more dead bees, and there was one chilled brood near the entrance of the hive (the white thing is a dead developing bee that has been removed from the hive by the bees):

Chilled brood is when the developing bee larvae are too cold and die (or are deformed). This can happen as a result of the beekeeper opening the hive when it is too cold or as a result of severely decreased numbers of bees (from pesticide poisoning because there are not enough bees in the hive to keep all of the brood warm).

I've fixed up some more food for the bees (a 2:1 sugar to water ration that is more like honey than their spring and summer mix which is only 1:1). Hopefully this will help them out a little so they can make it through winter.

I'm also going to wrap the hive in tar paper today hive today to try to keep them warmer (this is a normal winterizing step - the black paper will help warm up the hive as well as protect the bees from the wind creeping in to little holes).